Mazda Europe is promoting its sales and customer service chief, Martijn ten Brink, to president and CEO.
Ten Brink will succeed Yasuhiro Aoyama who will return to the company's headquarters in Hiroshima, Japan, to head global marketing and sales at the automaker. Aoyama has led European operations since 2019.
"As we successfully emerge from the pandemic across Europe, we decided it was the right time to put into action management changes we had planned as part of our mid-term plan development," Mazda CEO Akira Marumoto said.
Europe is an "incredibly important" market for Mazda and one where it is rolling out new technologies in a "very competitive environment," Marumoto said.
Ten Brink began his career at BMW in Italy in 1993, as a marketing trainee, before joining Honda three years later as an assistant marketing manager. He then joined Mazda Europe in 1999, holding a number of marketing and sales roles over the next nine years.